Are you planning to purchase the newest Samsung phone, or are you a bigger Pixel fan? You’ll want to reset your old Android phone to factory settings in order to remove all of your data before selling it on eBay, giving it away to a friend, discarding it, or trading it in for a discount on your new phone. Fortunately, doing that is fairly simple.
Before you begin, keep in mind that while the process for the most of recent Android phones should essentially be the same, these instructions were tested on a Pixel 3 running Android 12. It goes without saying that you should first confirm that all of your data has been moved to your new phone, backed up, or both. No turning back after your previous phone has reset.
I’m done now! Typically, the procedure takes two to three minutes. After rebooting, your phone will ask you the customary questions about language, account, network, etc. When you see those, you’ll understand that it was successful.
There are several things to keep in mind. Before you can reset your Samsung phone, you could first be prompted for your Samsung account password (provided you’ve made one and connected it to the device).
If you’ve got an Android phone that is using an earlier version of the OS (say, before version 8), the reset may, after it reboots, ask for your login. This could be awkward if you’ve already sent the phone to someone else. As a result, if you’ve got an older phone, it’s a good idea to turn off your screen lock (by going to Security > Screen lock and selecting None) and deleting your Google account (which you’ll find at Settings > Account > Google) before you start the reset. (In fact, that may be a good idea in any case.)
There is evidence that some data may remain on a phone even after it’s been reset. To be extra careful, you can encrypt the phone before resetting it:
Google Pixel Watch 5 (45mm)
Cristian Penisoara is a Guides Writer and Android specialist at Droid Tools. An Android user since version 2 and a professional event photographer, he combines technical curiosity with a detail-oriented approach - every guide he publishes is tested step-by-step on a real device before it goes live.
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